At least 10 civilians killed in Israeli airstrike

Source: By KARIN LAUB AND IBRAHIM BARZAK, AP

"GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip — An Israeli missile flattened a two-story house in a residential neighborhood of Gaza City on Sunday, killing at least 11 civilians, medical officials said, as Israel expanded its targets of its offensive to target homes of wanted militants."

"The airstrike targeted the home of the Daloo family in Gaza City's Nasser neighborhood, reducing it to rubble."

"Frantic rescuers pulled the children's bodies from the ruins of the house, including a toddler and a 5-year-old, as survivors and bystanders screamed in grief. Later, the bodies of the children were laid out in the morgue of Gaza City's Shifa Hospital."

"The Israeli military said the target of the attack was a top rocket mastermind of the Islamic Jihad militant group. The claim could not be verified, and al-Kidra said the two men killed in the attack were also civilians."

13. Don't bother.

There are so many neo-con "progressives" at this point that its become impossible to have a rational discussion. Somehow they've all become slightly more socially progressive and brought their archaic quasi racist foreign policy with them. All you have to do is look for the dog whistles, they'll blame everyone except for the people who dropped the bombs.

11. What fucking difference does it make how many Israelis'

the rockets killed? The fact that Hamas is shooting them into Israel tells us that there intended purpose is to try to kill as many civilians as possible, and Israel has every right to defend themselves and try to end the threat.

22. If Israel wants peace, it needs to remove its boot from the neck of the Palestinians.

Gaza is nothing more than an open air prison.

What fucking difference does it make? Ask the dead. There are many, many more dead Palestinians, including the 11 members of one family (five women, four kids) killed by the "we don't target civilians" Israelis with one rocket.

35. Yes, being offended by the killing of civilians makes me a terrorist-loving antisemite

Booga booga booga, fear me. Heard this line before, doesn't phase me.

What choice did their parents make, exactly? You know Hamas assumed dominance over the gaza strip via a coup and near-civil war against the Fatah-led PA, don't you? So don't give me the "Palestinian children deserve to die because their daddy voted hamas six years ago" angle.

Also, don't try this "Israel has no choice but to bomb them!" argument. It strips the Israelis of any self-applied agency for one, and for another, it simply isn't true.

37. I was responding in kind. Perhaps you shouldn't be so quick to namecall.

Hamas is making a political decision to wage war, putting the lives of their people on the line. Launching rockets into another country is by definition war. Look back at the World wars or other wars - Civilians always are harmed. The only way to not harm children is to not fight wars - PERIOD!

In this case, Israel has every right to respond back - no people on earth is just going to allow themselves to be bombed without responding. It's not just the kill rate, it's the psychological trauma. A stable civilization cannot exist under constant siege. Does Israel treat the Palestinians like shit? Absolutely! But I still believe that non-violent resistance would get them free far faster than this constant war game.

As for your children lines, it's a sophism approach that is not worthy of serious response.

43. You can't even keep your argument straight

I'm quick to name-call because you were saying that these innocent people deserved to die. I find this strain to be very indicative of hte "Pro-Israel" position which at least in this country, is defined primarily by hatred of Arabs. When you tell me that these people are "getting the treatment they desire" in a post talking about a house full of civilians getting blown the fuck up, yeah, that's exactly what your attitude is.

For your next trick, reconcile this argument of yours: "The only way to not harm children is to not fight wars - PERIOD! ...unless you are Israel and have some excuse then it's totally okay go ahead"

Now, you can have one position or the other, I suppose they're both valid, independently of one another. But they don't go together very well. Try again, and see if you can do it without handwaving the deaths of innocents this time.

46. Nothing inconsistent there.

I oppose war from both parties. I do believe that war can achieve a seize fire (stop rockets), but only after much bloodshed. I don't think the war will help the Palestinians become a free nation, which is what I want to see. I want a 2 state solution. I don't want Israeli's nor Palestinians to die.

But, if one side is going to start attacking, I recognize the right of the other party to defend themselves. At this point, Israel has few options, and to just take getting shelled constantly isn't a logical choice. We probably disagree on the nature of response, but I'd like to think you are level headed enough to recognize that Israeli's also don't want a rocket to kill their children. If Hamas won't stop diplomatically, then the choice is made by them. Somehow the rockets must stop.

As for desired (NOT DESERVED), look at Hamas's Charter. They won't accept a 2 state solution and desire endless war. They want the obliteration of the Jewish state. Endless war costs the lives of the children. Non-violent resistance would allow all sides to give and come to a solution. Violence just justifies the status quo.

We generally label the desires of a government as the desires of a people. A government that don't want to have citizens killed must choose a different method than war.

73. And both sides in this are EQUALLY WRONG to use violence.

Retaliatory violence against civilians is as wrong as any other kind. There was never any way the civilians of Gaza could ever under ANY circumstances have prevented the rocket attacks. The dead Gazan civilians are just as much wrongly dead as were any of the dead Israelis.

No form of state violence has any higher moral sanction than any other.

Ending the Israeli blockade of Gaza would have done far more to stop the rockets than any use of force. It's absurd to assume that the rockets would still have been fired if Gazans were free to enter and leave the country at will.

74. I don't want violence from either party

I'd prefer a complete cease fire, but I doubt it will happen. Hamas, at least under present leadership, doesn't desire peace with a Jewish state. It's in their political charter.

That said - the rockets need to stop for the bombs to also stop. I hope a diplomatic means to that end can be achieved. I fully believe that non-violence MLK or Gandhi style will get the Palestinians their free state.

76. You have to seperate out the Iraqi Military from the insurgency that followed.

If the Iraqi military had the means to hit our ports or refineries (all civilian targets), they would have. Any nation would to stop an enemy. Of that I have no doubt.

I'm not arguing Bushian bullshit about a threat from WMDs and such. I'm saying that any country we engage would want to hit infrastructure and such if they can. This is a standard warfare tactic. Iraq just didn't have the means before they collapsed.

8. +1000000000000

the level of outrage against Israel defending itself and the lack of outrage for the Hamas terrorists committing attacks on Israel never ceases to amaze.
Israel's not perfect but they do have the absolute right to respond to threats against it's security.
My wife has family living in Tel Aviv and she served in the IDF back in the 70's, so she knows first hand what animals these terrorists are.
The stated goal of Hamas, Hezbollah, and Iran is the total destruction of Israel, so I can understand why Israel responds so forcefully.

10. No, Israel generally doesn't intentionally kill civilians.

It just bombs the shit out of heavily populated urban areas and, well, you know, accidents happen. Too bad for those little Palestinianan kids. But they probably would have grown up to be terrorists anyway.

23. Eh, that is almost the only argument some have left..

And why not? It usually immediately puts the other person on the defensive and seems to shut some people up pretty well. Like most cheap mudslinging, that line is dragged out ad infinitum because it works in lieu of arguments of substance. Unfortunate, since actual antisemites deserve all of the invective hurled at these erstwhile "crying wolf" occasions.

20. Stunningly disingenuous bullshit.. *nt

9. Borrowed this from another thread..

There are 2 side or more to every story.

All I know is the Israeli's have been torturing the citizens of Gaza for years-it has been a very one sided afair. Long ago I remember they used to have jets break the sound barrier on purpose frequently & at all hours-just to use the sonic booms to torment the citizens of Gaza.

As Palestinian militants in Gaza fire rockets into Israel and the Israeli Defence Force (IDF) bombard the Strip 'in retaliation', here are 10 things you should probably know about Gaza:

1) "PRISON CAMP"

David Cameron once referred to Gaza as a "prison camp" and "some sort of open-air prison". 1.7million Palestinians are crammed into just 140 square miles; Gaza is one of the most crowded places on earth.

Israel, despite withdrawing its troops and settlers from the Strip in 2005, continues to control its airspace, territorial waters and border crossings (with the exception, of course, of Gaza's land border with Egypt...."

2) (UN)FAIR FIGHT

Remember: according to the Israeli human-rights group B'Tselem, in the last major conflict between Israel and Hamas - 'Operation Cast Lead' which kicked off in December 2008 - 762 Palestinian civilians were killed, including more than 300 children, compared to three (yes, three!) Israeli civilians.

We seem to be seeing a similar imbalance in bloodshed this time round: "MORE PALESTINIANS WERE KILLED IN GAZA (ON WEDNESDAY) THAN ISRAELIS HAVE BEEN KILLED BY PROJECTIVLE FIRE FROM GAZA IN THE PAST 3 YEARS)" wrote Palestinian-American activist Yousef Munayyer on the Daily Beast website.

3) "COLLECTIVE PUNISHMENT"

Why do they hate us, ask ordinary Israelis? Well, Gaza has been under siege since January 2006, after its residents dared to elect a Hamas goverment in free and fair elections. The subsequent economic blockade imposed upon the Strip by the Israeli government at one stage prevented the residents of Gaza from importing, among other things, coriander, ginger, nutmeg and, even, newspapers.

Most international lawyers, as well as the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), consider the blockade to be illegal under international humanitarian law; in 2009, a UN panel, led by distinguished South African judge and self-confessed Zionist Richard Goldstone, accused Israel of imposing "a blockade which amounted to collective punishment".

As Palestinian militants in Gaza fire rockets into Israel and the Israeli Defence Force (IDF) bombard the Strip 'in retaliation', here are 10 things you should probably know about Gaza:

4) "ON A DIET"

In 2006, Dov Weissglass, the then chief of staff to Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon summed up his government's approach to Gaza and its residents when he confessed: "The idea is to put the Palestinians on a diet, but not to make them die of hunger."

A rhetorical flourish? Not quite: in 2008, Israeli defence officials in charge of restricting food and supplies from entering Gaza went so far "as to calculate how many calories would be needed to avert a humanitarian disaster in the impoverished Palestinian territory, according to a... declassified military document."

5) STUNTED GROWTH

Some 10% of children under five in the Gaza Strip have had their growth stunted due to prolonged exposure to malnutrition. "Stunting (chronic malnutrition) is not improving and may be deteriorating," concluded the World Health Organisation in May of this year.

6) JOBLESS AND HOPELESS

The unemployment rate in Gaza is 28% - and stands at 58% among young people aged between 20 and 24, according to the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics.

7) STRESSED KIDS

One in five children in Gaza suffers from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), according to the award-winning Palestinian psychiatrist Dr Eyad El-Sarraj. (More than half of Gaza's residents, incidentally, are under the age of 18.)

8) KILLING YOUR OWN 'SUBCONTRACTORS'

The escalation of the violence this week was prompted by Israeli's assassination-by-drone of Hamas military commander Ahmed al-Jabari; the IDF said Jabari was a terrorist with "blood on his hands". Yet, as Aluf Benn, editor-in-chief of the Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz, pointed out: "Ahmed Jabari was a subcontractor, in charge of maintaining Israel's security in Gaza... Israel demanded of Hamas that it observe the truce in the south and enforce it on the multiplicity of armed organizations in the Gaza Strip. The man responsible for carrying out this policy was Ahmed Jabari... Jabari was also Israel's partner in the negotiations for the release of Gilad Shalit; it was he who ensured the captive soldier's welfare and safety, and it was he who saw to Shalit's return home last fall."

According to Israeli peace activist Gershon Baskin, Jabari was the "key actor on the Hamas side" responsible for keeping calm inside the Strip and the official who would "force" ceasefires "on all of the other factions and on Hamas". Good job, IDF!

9) POOR GAZANS. LITERALLY.

The most recent UN report on Gaza found that 80% of households in the Strip receive some form of financial assistance and 39% of people live below the poverty line.

10) 1948 AND ALL THAT

Two out of three Palestinian residents of Gaza - more than a million people! - identify themselves as refugees; the majority of these are 1948, and not 1967, refugees - that is, they fled to the Strip in the "ethnic cleansing" of 1948 and not the Six Day War and subsequent occupation of 1967. Thus, tragically, even a two-state solution, based on pre-1967 borders, will not deliver justice to these particular Palestinians.

40. Hamas doesn't want a 2 state solution.

Their Charter calls for the obliteration of the Jewish state. As such, they keep fighting, destroying any hope of a peaceful 2 state solution with the Gaza strip.

The West Bank (which is under a different government) could be a stable state if Israel would abandon it's settlements and give full sovereignty to the Palestinians there. In that situation, Israel is definitely the problem.

85. +1,000,000,000 x 1,000,000,000 - Well put and definitely

87. +1

Foreign military aid, to all countries, needs to stop. We talk a big game about supporting democracy and human rights worldwide, and then we go and prop-up countries with histories of violating those same human rights we claim to uphold. These types of conflicts always end up hurting the poorest and most desperate people possible, while the elites on both sides just sit back and view it as one big political game. Its sickening, and we need to stop meddling and getting involved in all these foreign entanglements.

64. Collective punishment is wrong.

67. Very true, but is there anything to suggest that Israeli strategy is collective punishment?

Obviously it doesn't matter to the innocents who were killed by the Israeli strikes whether or not the rockets are being launched and stored in residential areas. I mean, dead is dead. But what other possible solutions are there to handling the firing of these rockets? (I'm actually asking, that's not a rhetorical question) Obviously the big picture answer is to have a fair two state solutions, but that's something that won't happen overnight and the rockets will continue to fall even if they started working toward a real solution today. Do the Israelis just take the hits for the greater good? And vise-versa, should the Palestinians take the hits for the greater good?